CrankyMagpie

I had all kinds of weird back and shoulder pain after surgery. Might have been the gas they used, might have been the hospital bed. It did clear up after a few days at home, doing lots of walking around the house. Did they give you the breathing tool ("incentive spirometer")? If so, use that a few times an hour, and you should be able to keep pneumonia away! I have asthma and get bronchitis every winter, and I did not get pneumonia from the surgery; I'm sure the spirometer was a lot of the reason why.

Just chiming in with a "hi, I also stalled" reassurance. I think it was around the end of week two/beginning of week 3. I'm near the end of week 4 and seeing losses again. Not the crazy ones like during the liquid diet, but multiple ounces most days, at least. And like @JennieJuniper said: often when the scale doesn't move, inches do. As long as we stay on plan, we'll get there! ??

I'm not even a full month past an invasive surgery. It's immediately visible to anyone who looks at my stats, and it ought to be enough that people give me a little bit of a break. And yet. I made a comment in a thread last night (my first comment in said thread), to correct a little bit of "what about the newbies" concern trolling (as a newbie, I'm qualified), and someone with a very high "reputation score" immediately jumped in and 1) lumped me in with the people they'd been heatedly arguing with for tens of posts, 2) misrepresented what I was saying, and 3) insulted my intelligence. Or at least my education level. When I clarified (angrily, because that's clearly what this person wanted from me, and I am honestly at the very end of my fuse for reasons that aren't relevant to the point I'm making), they doubled down, replying with one abusive post after another in rapid succession. It was awful. The thread has been closed, so while I guess maybe you could still go find it, please don't. If you witnessed it, please don't reopen that line of discussion or name the other person who behaved badly; that is not the point of this post. I'm not making a one-person call-out post; I'm talking about trends. Usually it's a couple of groups of veterans and near-veterans I see squabbling amongst each other, and if you go back in the archives a year, you can see a different set of near-veterans doing pretty much the same thing, about slightly different topics. (All that necroposting someone's been doing lately has accidentally surfaced a lot of ugliness.) And that is the behavior I'd rather focus on: people coming here to fight, being willing to bully newer members in the course of those fights, and still maintaining a high reputation. It's "people," plural, and it's a real problem. It makes reputation really misleading: we should lose reputation when we make the site more negative. And, yeah, the fact that I was provoked to the point of throwing insults back probably means I should lose a little bit of reputation for that, too. My point is, it would be nice to see some way for the community, or the moderators, to penalize bad behavior. Because without that, reputation is incredibly misleading. (I am, however, posting this in Rants & Raves and not Website Suggestions, because the details of how you build a fair moderation system are complicated. Done naively, it would just become another avenue for bullying and cliquishness; you can already see the ghost of that in the meangirl way some people use the "laughing" response on posts they disagree with. And I don't really expect Alex et. al. to put in that level of work, to learn how to do it fairly and then implement that. So this is just a rant. I'm angry that people get to behave badly, bully newer members, and still get little markers by their names suggesting that they are trustworthy. I'm of the opinion that removing reputation altogether would be better than what we have now, but I feel like that's not going to be a view that many share. So. Just a rant. Ignore me if you want; this isn't going anywhere, and I'm not going to pursue it now that I have it out of my system.)

WTAF? You just told me my math was right, by telling me my math was wrong? You are just spoiling for a fight, and I'm done feeding your troll ass.

Jesus, @FluffyChix, what is your problem? Are you an immediate post-op patient? No, you are not. You had your surgery more than six months ago, so you are not relevant to my point. Did I say "150 pounds"? No, I did not. I said 165, because at 165 pounds or more, one needs 60+ grams of protein, by these researchers' estimate. And the vast majority of immediate post-op patients weigh significantly more than 165 pounds. You want to talk about basic skills? Try learning to read. Also, maybe developing a modicum of chill. I was merely pointing out that the "you'll scare the immediate post-ops" is--I was nicer than this, but I'll be more real now--just concern trolling. You did not need to jump down my throat or insult my f---ing math skills.

The researchers' suggestion of .8g/kg is significantly more than 60 grams of protein for many of the folks here and for anyone newly post-op. There are people further out who are under 165 pounds and might need to weigh their options, but this article isn't at any risk of scaremongering immediate post-op patients.

My household will be handing out candy from one plastic pumpkin and little toys and temporary tattoos from another, so that kids with allergies still get something. I figure 1) the children didn't have weight loss surgery, and 2) I'm not willing to give up on my favorite holiday or let those kids down just because I did. My partner will take any leftover candy to work. He might also be the one in charge of the pumpkin with the candy, although, honestly, I can say no to mini Snickers for an hour or two. (Or much longer, given how badly peanuts and that much sugar would likely settle for me right now.) It's fine.

Different temperatures make a big difference, and it's worth playing around to see what goes down the easiest. I'm three weeks out and still have a LOT of trouble with room temperature drinks. I do great with hot tea, though. And popsicles. And Jello never hurt me, which seems so strange, since it's thick. Maybe worth a try for you, too?

Unjury also sells a chicken noodle soup flavored protein powder. Sometimes I have that when I'm low on protein but can't take the sweetness any longer.

I don't actually know how long I'm supposed to take mine, but I have one that I take twice a day, with no side effects that I've noticed.

Riding a bike again. (I've done it at nearly my current weight, but it's hard. Also, the bike store employees look disbelieving. Also, above about 250 pounds your options for bikes really taper down to nothing. Below 220, even a folding bike is fine.) Going kayaking. Loooooooooooooooong walks. And hikes.

How do you cook without algebra? Especially given the reduced portions we cook for!

Ed referred to me as "she." I was just clarifying.

I dragged some friends out on a walk with me today. Then we went to a coffee shop. (I know this doesn't solve the "bars aren't fun" problem, which I'll get to in a moment, but it is a suggestion about how to get in some socializing on your own terms.) I haven't been to a restaurant or a party-party, yet; there's been food at a couple of places I've gone, but it hasn't really been hard to avoid, yet. I'm hoping maybe I can hold off on any event that's too food-heavy until, if there's something I really want to eat, I can have a bite of it without endangering my healing stomach. (I am not going to be one of those hardcore diet deprivation folks you see on here. Not judging them--if anything, I'm impressed by their fortitude--but just being realistic about myself. "I can have exactly one bite of the very tasty thing, and I will enjoy the crap out of that bite" is just a better way for me, personally, to live my life.) Also, raw veggies are the one really healthy thing you can generally rely on finding at parties, and I know those are a ways off for us, yet. Failing the "delay" plan, though, I would probably be inclined to bring something I can have, that others might also like. BananaTummy suggests that her Mandarin Greek Yogurt is a hit at parties: http://www.bananatummy.com/2011/04/greek-yogurt-mandarin-yogurt-sweet/ And I can imagine that this custard would also be a hit (when I used part Splenda, part xylitol, nobody could tell it wasn't sugar): https://www.bariatriceating.com/2015/04/egg-custard-perfect-bariatric-food/ Hummus, which I am absolutely enough of a barbarian to put on my plate and eat with a spoon

I've read about a number of people bruising more easily (even with solid labs). Some people have dental problems, too. I'm still in my first month post-op, so I don't know. I got the surgery to combat autoimmune arthritis--WLS clears it up for up to 50% of people who get it--but it's too soon to know if it'll do that for me. Apparently arthritis isn't like diabetes, which sometimes clears up immediately post-op; studies seem to run for six months to a couple of years, on my particular type of arthritis. So I am trying to wait patiently, to see if I'm one of the lucky ones.

Seconding both of these sentiments! I can tell a few minutes after I've eaten too much because I feel a little green about the gills, and I make a note to eat about 1/4 ounce less the next time. I just don't have a "full" signal that I can decipher, as yet. I haven't been sick, yet, but have definitely spent some time feeling nauseated. I'm also having a lot of trouble getting to 64 ounces of liquids with three half-hour meals and the rest of my life happening as well. I was just telling some friends today: I spent all this time building up good habits about carrying a water bottle everywhere and drinking a lot, pre-op; only now I can't drink room temperature water. I can barely drink room temperature anything, so I find myself making (mostly decaf) hot tea all day. And of course I lose time every time I refill my cup. My solution, such as it is, is to buy myself a bigger tea cup. At least I'll lose time a bit less often?

Thank you, Alex! I really appreciate it! elcee: Fun fact: I'm a developer (and a they, not a she, just as an fyi). In a lot of websites' code bases, it's pretty easy to set a thing so that a user never sees said thing, no matter what. It's like the thing was never there--everything below it just moves up a spot. Just like, as Ed suggested, Facebook does when a Facebook user blocks another user or hides content from a page. Easy breezy, nothing at all like "suit[ing] trending topics to each persons individual requirements" or anything difficult like that (which Facebook actually does try to do, in between making money for advertisers and data harvesters). And it's not really cool for one person to say what another person should have to learn to live with. Something could be triggering to someone's PTSD or to their eating disorder, or it could be appropriate but really disgusting--there are lots of legitimate reasons for someone to want to hide content from themselves without having to report it as inappropriate, and I'm grateful that Alex is willing to work with his team to see if it's doable within this code base.

Is there a way--or, if there isn't a way, would the site admins consider please maybe implementing a way--to set it so that a user can change a setting on an individual thread and never ever see it again? I don't mean "notifications off." I mean, even if people keep posting to it, it doesn't show up in the list of threads in the forum where it was posted or, ideally, in the trending boxes, either. I guess if someone tags a user inside a thread they've hidden, the user should probably get a notification(?), but if so, they should have the option to re-hide the thread if they want to. There have been a few thread titles that I've found annoying or really gross, that I wish I could have hidden from myself, but I couldn't figure out how. I just had to keep hoping people would stop posting to them. Eventually, for most of them, that's happened, but some of those threads Just. Won't. DIE. Please give me a way to make those threads seem dead to me, even if everyone else is enjoying them?

I'm not entirely sure either of us will be able to eat a full packet, at this point, and it's going to be SUPER important to make sure the oats get cooked all the way before eating it, but something I've always liked when I've been on low-carb plans in the past are these protein oatmeals: https://store.bariatricpal.com/collections/breakfast/products/bariatricpal-hot-protein-breakfast-apple-cinnamon-oatmeal (Full disclosure: I didn't buy this exact brand; nor did I buy it here. I got the ProtiDiet brand and really liked it. But I imagine BP's is similar, and I'll probably try it when I run out of the ProtiDiet ones. Also, the apple cinnamon flavor is better if you add some additional cinnamon and ginger.) I noticed I had a box in my pantry today, so I'm probably going to give this a try for tomorrow's breakfast.

I measure everything by weight, though I do think the container of cottage cheese claims "1/2 cup" is a serving, too.

I took about two weeks and was glad I did. Even now, three weeks and a couple of days out, I still end up randomly really tired.

When I start to get that sick tummy from dehydration, sugar free popsicles help me get past it. Also, I can't drink room temperature liquids, most of the time. Popsicles work, and hot tea works. Maybe one or both will work for you?

My team is so weird. Full liquids are their own thing, and then purees and soft foods are thrown in together. I'm on that stage, which starts with cottage cheese and yogurt and ends with ground meat and soup/chili. The most "advanced" thing I've eaten was a couple (1 and 3/4 :)) of Ikea meatballs, which sat really heavy, but besides those, I'd say I'm around the middle of the list. Very moist tuna salad is fine, as are scrambled eggs (I mean, those settled weird, but I digested them, so I guess they're OK). I'm thinking of trying thin-cut lunch meat next; that sounds really good to me. All I want in this world is the middle of a cheeseburger--I could let the bread and veggies go; I just want some ground beef, and cheese on it would be excellent--but I know not to push things that far, yet. The reward for going slowly is not getting sick, and that is a very compelling reward. :)

Ehhh I've been stalled (bouncing around in the same half pound range) for like a week. (10/3 surgery.) I'm not too stressed. The body has a lot to adjust to.

I was allowed to swallow pills (Tylenol) in the hospital. I've been swallowing my Prilosec capsule every day since I got home and Actigal (to prevent gallstone formation) since 10 days after my surgery. I wouldn't take huge or solid ones (I mean, the Actigal is really big, but it's a capsule, so I'm guessing it breaks down in the stomach). Like a normal One-A-Day vitamin might be too much, but Prilosec is definitely fine, according to my team.